A member of the House of Representatives, Hon Busayo Wole Oke at weekend decried the introduction of a parliamentary system of government in the administration of Local Government Areas in Osun State describing the practice as illegal and unconstitutional.
In a statement made available to Tribune Online in Abuja on Sunday on a speech he delivered in Oshogbo, the Osun State Capital, the lawmaker representing Obokun/Oriade Federal Constituency of Osun State declared that the current system at the local government areas in Osun was an aberration should be abolished immediately.
Hon. Oke therefore urged the Osun State House of Assembly, in conjunction with the State Executive Council to ensure a speedy reversal of the obnoxious system in order not to bungle the spread of dividends of democracy in the state.
Oke vowed that he would do everything legally possible to ensure that the local government administration in the state was not run outside the provision of the nation’s constitution.
Hon. Oke queried that if the lopsided system of government was so popular and beneficial, why was it that none of the other states making up the nation hasn’t deemed it fit to copy it
According to Oke, ” parliamentary system of government under the country’s presidential system is a misnomer, which “has been brewing crises upon crises across the length and breadth of the state’.’
The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) Lawmaker pointed out that the system was a flagrant rape on the nation’s Constitution that clearly spelt out the mode of administering all the levels of government in the country.
Hon Oke said the position of the Constitution was clear on issues of law and administration as enshrined in Section 1(3) of the 1999 Constitution as Amended.
According to him, “If any other law is inconsistent with the provisions of this constitution, the constitution shall prevail and other law shall, to the extent of the inconsistency, be voided
“The system is an affront to the Federal Government; there should be uniformity of purpose in the system of government.
“As it is the case in Osun today, governance at the local government level is a bundle of confusion, which is not doing the citizenry any good.
“If the federal government has favoured parliamentary system of government, such will have been the ground norm of our constitution.’’
The lawmaker further observer that the contextual provision of the constitution was not in agreement with the law of the land, which made it a mere criminal approach to governance with impunity.